Empathy and Encouragement
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For September 10, 2023:
Empathy and Encouragement
by Thomas Willadsen
Exodus 12:1-14
Why is this night different from all other nights? So begins the four questions that are asked by contemporary Jews each year as they gather to celebrate the Passover seder. Tradition has it that the youngest capable person at the table asks the four questions. Each question pertains to a particular practice connected with observing Passover: Eating only matzoh; eating maror rather than a variety of vegetables; dipping vegetables twice in salted water; and eating while reclining. Each question ties modern Jews to the liberation won for them by the Lord at the first Passover, as recorded in Exodus 12. This ritual reinforces Jewish identity and seeks to make the Passover a personal experience rather than a mere recitation of history.
What rituals do we practice today in the United States? Do they connect us personally and with experience to other people and events or are they mere lip service? What makes a ritual effective?
In the Scriptures
Today’s lesson from Exodus is the set of instructions the Lord gave to Moses and Aaron regarding the celebration of the Passover. While Passover falls in the spring — it will be in April the next four years — it falls on September 10 this year in the Revised Common Lectionary. The contemporary observance of Passover is different from what Exodus describes. Modern Jews do not eat the feast hurriedly with “loins girded.” Nor is lamb the meat of choice, having given way to brisket in the past two millennia. Still, there is a strong emphasis on experience. All five senses are used around the traditional seder table as the story of the Lord’s decisive liberation is retold. The ritual is designed to span thousands of years and miles, making God’s intended shalom and liberation personal and intimate.
“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14, NRSV)
This ritual has shaped and defined Jews in many lands and for all time. The ritual connects.
It is no coincidence that Christians erected one of our sacraments on the foundation of Passover. “On the night when Christ was betrayed,” our familiar words go, Jesus was celebrating and remembering God’s decisive liberation of his people. Modern Christians have transformed this ritual to remind us who we are, and whose we are.
When we get it right, we go well beyond “thoughts and prayers” to a renewed identity, a renewed sense of vocation.
In the News
Thoughts and prayers.
I have frankly lost track of all the mass shootings in the news. Last week there was a headline about a sentencing for a shooter in Tennessee and I could not recall which shooting that was. When had there been a shooting in Tennessee? What were the circumstances surrounding that one? It had blended into the miasma of daily mass shootings in my memory. Maybe this was the one where the angry, embittered white man was able to get access to a high-powered weapon, (or many high-powered weapons) before opening fire into a crowd? That one?
Wait, that’s like saying my favorite Three Stooges short is the one in which Moe whacks Curly. (Spoiler alert: Moe whacks Curly in every Three Stooges short. Repeatedly.)
And our ritual response to each shooting is to offer thoughts and prayers to the survivors and the communities that have experienced this all too frequent occurrence. Thoughts and prayers. Good Liars offered a brilliant critique of our impotent ritual in this clip from last year’s National Rifle Association convention in Houston.
Passing meaningful laws that restrict access to weapons, funding community mental health initiatives, working to integrate estranged people into the community — things that would actually respond to the epidemic of mass shootings in this country — are not part of our communal, ritual response. We offer thoughts and prayers and continue to be surprised, daily, by acts of gun violence and mayhem.
Which part of the world is experiencing a natural disaster linked to global warming this week? British Columbia? Maui? The Florida Panhandle? India? Arizona? Los Angeles? The debris following wildfire, hurricanes and deadly heat waves looks different, but our response is the same — we offer thoughts and prayers for the survivors, first responders, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At my church we promote Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) and encourage members to donate in response. Do we drive less? Switch to a plant-based diet? Take steps to use renewable energy? Do we do anything to put less carbon in the atmosphere, and thus have an impact on climate change? Not so much. We offer thoughts and prayers, and maybe write a check.
In the Sermon
Been there. Will go there with you.
Paradise, California, endured the worst wildfire in California history in November 2018. A town that had been home to around 27,000 people now has a population one third that size. Still, those who survived the fire know exactly what the residents of Lahaina, Hawaii, are going through.
“This whole town of Paradise knows exactly what they’re feeling,” Tamara Fisher, a survivor of the Camp Fire, said. “It was fast. It was brutal. They just had to go with their gut. And some didn’t make it.”
“There’s so many points that were identical to what happened here in Paradise,” Richard Gore said. “But we do know that they will rise again because Paradise has. They’ll get through it.”
Civic groups from Paradise, including the Rotary Club, have already reached out to Maui with offers to help. Town Councilman Steve “Woody” Culleton wrote an email to Maui’s mayor and sent it Thursday morning.
Culleton choked up when he read it aloud.
“As a resident of Paradise CA and a survivor of the 2018 Camp Fire storm I and our community know what you folks are going through,” he wrote.
There really is something different, more profound, more impactful when someone who has really endured a catastrophe or survived peril, can offer empathy and encouragement to someone in similar straits. At our best, we feel and empathize while we think and pray.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Refusing to Listen
by Chris Keating
Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 13:8-14
Does anyone else have a hard time keeping up with seasons?
Officially, fall doesn’t begin until September 23. But try telling that to the autumn aficionados who got a jumpstart on the season August 23rd, when Starbucks began brewing all-things pumpkin spice. Lowe’s is piling its aisles full of gigantic Halloween decorations, even though half of the country is facing record-breaking heat waves. Football is back, kids are in school, and baseball is prepping for the postseason.
But it does not feel like fall. In fact, if truth be told, this is a time of seasonal confusion. Forget pumpkin spice. What we are living through is a prolonged season of public discord. Divisions across cultural, political, religious, and economic lines are as deep as the Mariana trench.
Political divisions have not healed since the last election cycle. With President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump the likely 2024 nominees, it seems as though the 2024 election will be a season of reruns. Political scientists note that the headwinds driving the election campaign are rooted in strong “negative partisanship,” and not a desire to solve national problems. Hatred may be a strong word, but it seems to be an even stronger motivator.
“Who do you hate? Hey, who hates you? Those are the motivating forces right now,” said David Kochel, a longtime Trump-skeptical Republican strategist from Iowa. “It would be better for the country if we had an argument about the future. And it’s hard to do that if you have two really old politicians who already ran against each other.”
Ideologies of hate seem to be rising as quickly as temperatures in August. President Biden reminded an audience last week that intelligence agencies are monitoring potential domestic terrorist threats rooted in racial hatred. White supremacy, Biden said, “is the greatest threat we face in the homeland.”
There are also non-racial acts of violence, including numerous threats or acts in high schools across the country last week that prompted administrators to postpone Friday night football games. In St. Louis, Missouri, games were cancelled at three high schools following fights or other violent outbursts, including one shooting.
The venting of internal anxieties, channeling feelings of negative partisanship are also experienced on Sunday mornings. The ongoing rift within Methodism over the role of LGBTQ persons has resulted in the loss of more than 6,000 congregations from the United Methodist Church. “I don’t think any of us want to see any of our churches leave,” said Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops. “There’s never been a time when the church has not been without conflict, but there’s been a way we’ve worked through that.”
The bishop is correct. Jesus’ words in Matthew, perhaps a reflection of the earliest Christian community’s own struggles with conflict, invite disciples to consider pathways of peace. Coupled with Paul’s admonition to “owe no one anything, except to love one another,” these texts exhort Christians to create communities of loving trust and mutual accountability. Such community, notes Warren Carter, is commanded to enact Jesus’ own prayer “if this is how it is in heaven,” Carter writes, “so it must be among disciples on earth.” (Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, vol. 204, Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 365).
While we have no record of Jesus sitting through a hotly-contested congregational meeting or a temper-enraging judicial debate, it seems he did know something about the proclivity of humans to act poorly in community. His alternative, shaped by the progression to the cross, is a way of faith no less demanding. The cross-shaped community is marked by reconciliation, forgiveness, and inclusion. It is shaped by child-like humility (18:4), and a wide-eyed awareness of pitfalls and occasions for stumbling (18:7).
In other words, conflict is going to happen. It might even be healthy. But it is going to require opening ourselves in humility and trust. That is especially true when the conflicts go beyond what sort of coffee should be served and whether the donuts should be plain or sprinkled. (Perhaps it is a nod toward baptismal practices, but Presbyterians do seem to love their sprinkled donuts.)
My first lessons in church conflict happened back in the 1970s, long before I ever considered attending seminary. I was in middle school, sitting between my parents on a hot summer Sunday. We had rounded the corner of worship, and were headed toward the final hymn. All that separated me from my cup of tepid church Kool-Aid was the final song.
In a nod to church members who wanted more contemporary-sounding music, the pastor had chosen a song not found in our regular hymnal. Instead, we were directed to sing Kurt Kaiser’s 1969 song, “Pass It On.” Having sung that at countless campfires, I was intrigued by how my parents might react. I gathered it would not have been among my mother’s favorites, but both mom and dad sang along without objection.
However, a barefooted young man stood up on a pew behind us and shouted, “Praise God” as we were singing, “I’ll shout it from the mountain tops…” Some, especially those who saw themselves as harbingers of a neo-Pentecostal expression of faith, were elated. Others, including my staunch Presbyterian parents, were mortified. (I’d like to think it was the bare feet that really pushed them over the edge, especially since I had always liked “Pass It On.”)
The fault-lines of conflict were immediately apparent. Two groups formed on the patio during coffee time that morning: A pro “praise song” group, and traditionalists who preferred hymns (and the wearing of shoes). Eventually, those fault lines gave way to deeper fissures of theology and debates over congregational culture. The resulting conflict prompted hurt feelings, departures of prominent members, and years of distrust.
Interestingly, many of those who loved quoting scripture never mentioned Jesus’ words about listening to those with whom you disagree. (To their credit, I did see my parents and their friends reach out to others who did not share their viewpoints.) Jesus points us away from hyper partisanship. The way of the cross resists hatred and overcomes evil. It does no wrong to neighbors. It shuns evils like angry partisanship behavior and white supremacy.
It dares to trust that where two or more are gathered, no matter what sort of donuts are served, Christ will be in our midst.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Exodus 12:1-14
The Birth of the Passover Seder Ritual. The importance of rituals.
Weird Rituals Around the World
Do an internet search of the phrase “weird rituals” and here are some that you will find. Keep in mind that they’re weird only from the outside. To the people who practice them they are important activities that remind them of who they are:
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Weird American Rituals
Lest we become too smug in observing and smirking over the weird rituals of other countries, take a look at these American rituals that must certainly seem equally bizarre to visitors from other countries.
1. Presidential turkey pardons — Since the 1940s, US presidents have been presented with a Thanksgiving turkey at a special ceremony and have spared the bird’s life by officially pardoning it.
2. Nenana Ice Classic, Alaska — Ice on the Tanana River in Alaska accumulates to more than a meter deep during the winter. Back in 1906, six people in the city of Nenana bet on the exact time on the exact day that the ice would break in the spring. The prize was $816 to the winner. In 2014 the prize hit a record $363,000.
3. Groundhog Day, Pennsylvania — On February 2 every year, groundhog burrows across America are put under intense scrutiny for their powers to foretell seasonal change. Really? Groundhogs?
4. Ostrich racing, Arizona — Ostriches were first brought to the US in the 1880s, and ostrich-riding races sprung up in several states across the country. The biggest current race is in Arizona, at the Chandler Ostrich Festival, which celebrated its 31st year in 2019.
6. Roadkill cook-off, West Virginia — Every September, people in Marlington, West Virginia, have a Roadkill Cook-off, where you can try such delights as biscuits covered in squirrel gravy, teriyaki-marinated bear, or deer sausage, all scooped up from the side of the road after an unfortunate accident.
7. Pumpkin chucking — Throwing pumpkins is now a ritual practice throughout the US but the original and largest pumpkin chucking contest, Punkin Chunkin, is held annually in the state of Delaware. Contestants use trebuchets, catapults, torsions and air cannons to make those pumpkins fly. The furthest has traveled 4694 feet (1.4km).
8. The imperial system — Even though the metric system was formally sanctioned by Congress way back in 1866, the US remains the only industrialized country in the world not to have adopted it as the official system of measurement. We still insist on using feet, yards, miles, pounds, ounces, quarts and gallons.
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Habits, Routines, Traditions, Or Rituals?
Sometimes in the church we participate in rituals that aren’t really rituals. We think this or that activity is infused with meaning but, really, it’s just a habit, a tradition, or a routine, devoid of meaning. How do we know the difference?
Habits are things we do because we can’t not do them. Smoking is a habit. Fingernail biting is a habit. They may be harmless or hurtful but we just can’t bring ourselves to not do them without help from a therapist or counselor or a person whom we trust has our best interests at heart.
Traditions are routines or things we do because we’ve “always” done them. Sometimes they have their roots in social etiquette established to make life easier for the group. Like passing food to the left at the dinner table or shaking hands with a stranger to make sure their hand isn’t concealing a weapon. Others may have been important rituals at one time but have lost their meaning through over or inappropriate use. This would include telling people that we’re keeping them in our “thoughts and prayers” after we all know that is most often simply code for “doing nothing.”
Rituals reach back to our core beliefs and moral standards. The eucharist is a ritual because it reminds us of who we are. The wedding ceremony is a ritual that reminds us — all of us, not just the people getting married — that commitment agreed to before the community of faith is part of who we are. The sacraments — Protestant and Roman Catholic — are rituals that remind us who we are.
It is absolutely vital that, in the church, we don’t mistake one of these for the other. No matter how much we may love our potluck dinners and our church softball teams, until they strike at the very heart and essence of who we are, they’re just routines or habits.
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How Important Rituals Lose Their Meaning and Power
Important rituals can lose their meaning and power and turn into nothing more than habits or routines. Usually this doesn’t happen all at once but incrementally and over a long period of time. For example:
Up until the early 1600s the Pope sat in a “pierced” chair that had a large, uncomfortable keyhole shape in the back and seat. This was to remind the Pope to be humble, or so it was explained. Eventually, however, it became little more than a nuisance and was abandoned.
In ancient times, people would decorate trees with fruits and nuts to celebrate the winter solstice. Christians borrowed the practice, using a fir (evergreen) tree to celebrate the birth and immortality of Jesus Christ. However, with time, this ritual has lost most of its original meaning and has become more of a commercialized tradition.
Wedding ceremonies in the Christian churches used to be filled with meaning about commitment, self-sacrifice, selfless love, as well as erotic passion and fertility. Today, most of that has been lost. Weddings are more about stag parties (male and female), the bride’s chance to become a “princess for a day,” how pretty everything looks, and how raucous the reception can be and if there’s an open bar.
Similarly, funeral rituals have also lost much of their meaning over time. In ancient times, funerals were seen as a way to honor the dead and help them transition to the afterlife. In modern times, however, funerals have become more of a social obligation to be gotten through as quickly as possible than a meaningful ritual.
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Matthew 18:15-20
Tax collectors and sinners and how we treat them. Even God practices teamwork.
Stack Overflow in The Church
“Stack overflow” is a term usually applied to computer programming and, in simple terms, it means that the first thing to come out of a system will be the last thing that was put into the system. Think of a stack of blocks that you have created and now want to disassemble. The first block you remove from the stack will be the last one you placed on the top. (Yes, yes, I know. This doesn’t apply to Jinga, but you get the picture.)
Stack overflow is also a phenomenon that happens in social systems (groups). As the group coalesces, the last or most recent people to join the group will often be the first to leave it. This is often simply because it is hard to break into an established system or group and, once they do, they don’t have as much invested in it. Rituals, traditions, jargon and mythologies have been created and are difficult to learn and some people will find the process too arduous to bother with.
Churches, themselves, can experience stack overflow as a whole. Imagine the first-time visitor or guest, coming into the worship service and trying to discern what is acceptable dress, behavior, volume of singing voice, sitting and/or standing, even where they are allowed to sit.
Also, the stack overflow occurs when the group has not learned the language, rituals, and expectations of the new arrival. They will be much more likely to offend and cross boundaries with new people than with old friends.
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Even God Practices Teamwork
In Genesis 18, Abraham is visited by three men with whom he shares a meal. As part of their time together, the spokesman of the three announces that, within a year, Sarah will have a child even though she is old and well past “the way of women.” Then the three leave to visit the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where it’s as bad as they have heard, and they intend to utterly destroy both towns. After some haggling with Abraham, they make their way to the twin cities where they meet up with Lot and his family and, eventually, do as they had planned, i.e., reign down fire and brimstone, destroying both towns and all that was in them.
Scholars have argued for centuries who those three men are. Tradition holds that they were angels or angelic beings. Some traditions even go so far as to guess at their names, usually the well-known “celebrity” angels — Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. There is nothing in scripture to support such speculation, however.
A newer interpretation holds that the three men were actually the Lord YHWH, appearing as three people. Remember, only one of the men actually speaks. A fine example of how even God sometimes believes in and practices teamwork.
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Geese and Teamwork
There is a lot of mythology about geese and why they fly in a V configuration and what it all means, much of which has been debunked by ornithologists, physicists, and other people who study such things.
Over the years, I’ve heard lots of speakers and preachers use this mythology in their speeches and sermons only to be disproved some time later. One thing about geese that has never been disproved, however, is this, which I once heard a speaker end his presentations with this:
Oh, and one other thing: If you watch carefully, you’ll notice that all geese wedges have one side longer than the other. Do you know why that is? (Pause.) It’s becaue there are more geese on that side.
It took a couple of seconds but he left the stage to uproarious laughter and applause.
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One Hand Clapping, Together
The story is told about the famous comedian Jimmy Durante, where after a show he was asked if he could come down the street and briefly speak to some WWII soldiers who were recovering from their wounds at a local rehab center. Knowing that this would make him late for his next engagement, he reluctantly agreed that he could give the group only ten minutes.
He followed the gentleman down the street and found about 100 wounded vets in beds, wheelchairs, and folding chairs, arrayed, theater style, in the activities room. He stood at a microphone in front of the room and did the ten-minute bit which was met with much laughter and applause. So, looking at his watch, he continued for another five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, finally, he had been speaking for 30 minutes and he bid them all farewell, thanking them for their service and sacrifice.
On the way to the airport his driver asked why kept talking after the ten minutes were over and he said that, in the front row, there were two amputees who had both lost arms, one the left and one the right. Neither of them could join the applause alone but when they particularly enjoyed one of his jokes, they would work together with the hands they had to make something like applause.
If it was worth working that hard for them to say thank you, Durante said, then it was worth me working a little harder for them to have something to applaud for.
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From team member Mary Austin:
Romans 13:8-14
Get Vertical
“Now is the time to wake from sleep,” Paul urges the faithful in Rome. He means a spiritual alertness to the presence of God. Author Elizabeth Gilbert adds to that the wisdom of standing up, in body and mind. She observes, “I have a rule, a very strict rule in my life against horizontal thinking, which means if I’m in bed — because I wake up, my mind turns on, and the anxiety begins. And I call that horizontal thinking. My mind has me trapped in bed, lying down, and so it can do whatever it wants. It can have its way with me.”
If she stands up and starts moving, the anxiety subsides, and she can face the day. “I battle against horizontal thinking by actually standing up, and now I can do vertical thinking. And vertical thinking is already better than horizontal thinking.” Changing “your posture from down to up,” as she says, or from sleep to awake, as Paul says, makes all the difference.
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Romans 13:8-14
What We Owe
“Owe no one anything,” Paul advises, except love. Many Americans would be thrilled to have that emotional freedom.
Instead, the average household the US spends 9.6% of their income on debt repayment. As spending increased after the pandemic, debt has increased, although “despite debt increasing overall, Americans are still spending less of their income on debt than most of the 2000s.” As a country, we and our neighbors “owe $1 trillion in credit card debt as of the second quarter of 2023. That's a record high, up from $986 billion in the first quarter of 2023.”
Most of what we owe is on our homes, an amount that is rising as home prices increase. “Mortgage debt makes up 70% of American consumer debt. That number has risen consistently since mid-2013…The average mortgage debt among Americans is $236,443.”
Our experiences vary here. “While more than a third of Americans say they’re carrying their highest level of debt ever, an even greater share reported the opposite. The latest New York Federal Reserve data also shows that rising credit card debt and auto loans helped push US household debt to new records in the second quarter of 2023.”
The advice to “owe no one anything” is a far-off dream for many people in the US.
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Romans 13:8-14
Wake Up!
The apostle Paul would be impressed! He urges the believers in Rome to be awake. On a physical, and very practical level, Thomas Frank, an entrepreneur in Boulder, Colorado, is very serious about waking up on time. He gets up at 5:55 each morning. “And if he doesn’t, he has a tweet automatically scheduled that says, “It’s 6:10 and I’m not up because I’m lazy! Reply to this for $5 via PayPal (limit 5), assuming my alarm didn’t malfunction.” (story from Atomic Habits by James Clear)
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Matthew 18:15-20
Listening to Each Other
In Jesus’ instructions about how to handle disputes, the word “listen” comes up again and again. The story is told about another wise rabbi who understood this.
“Two villagers came to a rabbi with a dispute. When the rabbi invited them to sit down and talk about it, they glowered at each other as though to say, “If you sit down at this table, then I won’t!” At last, they sat at the rabbi’s table with arms folded, casting angry glances at each other.”
Then the rabbi said, “Do you have anything more to say, Shlomo?” Yes, Shlomo asserted, he had more to say. The rabbi kept listening to Shlomo’s answers and asking him questions about them until at last Shlomo said, more calmly, “No. I have nothing more to say.” Next, the rabbi turned toward the other villager, Moshe, and asked, “What happened?” The rabbi listened to him and asked him questions until he, too, said, “I have nothing more to say.”
The rabbi rose from the table to leave the room, saying, “I will deliberate on this and come back with a decision.”
Less than a minute later, the rabbi returned, sat back down at the table, and said, “I have reached my verdict.” The rabbi described the verdict to them. Shlomo and Moshe looked at each other and each said, “All right. That solves it.” They shook hands and left.
Another man had been in the room and had watched all this. He said to the rabbi, “You found the solution in just a minute. Why did you let them talk so long, when you knew the answer right away?”
The rabbi said, “If I had not listened to each one’s full story, each would have resented my decision. It wasn’t my judgment that solved the problem. What solved it was listening to their entire stories.”
The listening is the secret, as Jesus knows.
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Matthew 18:15-20
Listening to the Enemy
Jesus invites his followers — and us — into a space of grace for our enemies, which is hard for minor transgressions, and even harder for huge losses. Michael T. McRay says, “We can give shelter to each other by telling stories of what it means to be human, and by listening generously.” He tells the story of a Palestinian man he met through a storytelling project.
He shares, “Bassam is a middle-aged Palestinian man who, at age seventeen, was sentenced to seven years in Israeli prison after a group of his friends threw grenades at Israeli soldiers. (No one was injured.) While in prison, one of Bassam’s Israeli jailers began conversations with him, challenging him on the story Bassam believed about his history, politics, and people. As the jailer and Bassam each told his understanding of the conflicted story of Israelis and Palestinians, Bassam hoped to convince the man to his way of thinking; I suspect the jailer hoped for the opposite. After a while, the jailer started bringing Bassam coffee — an attempt to provide some dignity and a sign of growing respect, or at least less disdain.
One October day, around a hundred Israeli soldiers entered the prison as part of a military exercise, bringing each Palestinian out of his cell to be beaten in a gauntlet formation. When they seized Bassam, he resisted and was taken into a side room for a more severe beating. As the soldiers struck him over and over, another person entered and threw his body over Bassam’s to protect him. It was his jailer.
Some years later, after Bassam was free, he began meeting with former soldiers to exchange stories and hear different points of view, meetings that eventually led to the creation of Combatants for Peace. “I started to learn the other side,” he told me. “Then I began to see the soldiers in the checkpoints not as targets. For the first time, I started to look at their faces.… The change starts in yourself. Rumi said, ‘Yesterday I was clever, so I started to change the world. Today I am wise, so I start to change myself.’”
In 2007, an Israeli soldier shot and killed Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, as she came home from school. Bassam’s response to his daughter’s killing was remarkable: He went to graduate school to study the Holocaust, hoping to better understand the history of his Jewish neighbors. Today Bassam is a spokesperson for Parents Circle–Families Forum, an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost family members in the conflict.”
Listening to our enemies can take us to surprising places.
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From team member Elena Delhagan:
Romans 13:8-14, Psalm 119:33-40
“Where two or three are gathered in my name” is not, as some would believe, words confirming Jesus’ presence at our small gatherings. Is Jesus present when two or three believers are gathered together? Absolutely! He’s also present with a solo Christian as well.
Rather, what Jesus is actually talking about in this passage is how to handle conflict. A faithful Jew, Jesus is calling upon words from the Torah (Deut. 19:15-19 specifically, which says that two or three witnesses must agree with one another in order for legally binding charges to be brought against someone.) What Jesus is doing here shows us how to handle conflict with a fellow believer using the Law as our basis.
The Law is not unimportant to Jesus; nor should it be to us as modern Christians. The passage of the Torah Jesus is referencing is to protect individuals from fabricated charges against them. Likewise, God’s laws for us are impossibly rigid regulations imposed on us by a militant taskmaster. God desires goodness, protection, and flourishing for us, which comes, as the psalmist understood, through following God’s ways (Psalm 119:33-40, the Psalm reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week).
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Romans 13:8-14
Many view the book of Romans to be all about grace (which is undoubtedly a strong theme). The problem we run into, however, is the assumption that pro-grace means, unequivocally, anti-Law — especially because in this week’s lectionary passage from Romans, Paul writes of how our love for one another is actually the fulfillment of the Law.
We are expected to obey laws all the time in this country. At the beginning of 2023, ABC news published an article about some of the big laws that would be going to effect this year in the United States. Some of them are causes for celebration: a raise in minimum wage in many states, pay transparency, and criminal justice reform. In instances like these, where policy is enacted to be more fair, just, and equitable, they act as examples of how love fulfills the law (and vice versa).
But what about laws that aren’t fair, just, or even kind? The website of the American Civil Liberties Union outlines some of the more troubling legislation that is being introduced across America, everything from voter suppression in Georgia to nationwide bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community, we are inching closer and closer as a society to being forced to answer the question: What do we do when the laws we are told to obey are inherently harmful?
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Exodus 12:1-14
The Jewish festival of Passover dates all the way back to approximately the 5th century B.C.E. Because its history spans multiple millenia, the rituals and traditions have evolved over time, and many modern Passover traditions scarcely resemble Passovers of old.
The text from Exodus brings up these questions of rituals and traditions, and what we, collectively, should do when we find that a ritual is no longer useful or relevant. Additionally, there are times in history, such as when the Covid-19 pandemic first hit American soil, that we find ourselves longing for rituals, but since there are none that apply to our current experience, we are forced to make them up as we go.
Is a ritual still a ritual if we change it? Is it still meaningful if we add or subtract to it?
Female Jewish writer Susie Kisber writes that some modern Jews have taken to putting an orange on their seder plates (despite oranges not being a traditional Passover food) because of a midrash frequently told by Suzanna Heschel. Suzanna was speaking at an event in the 1980s when she heard of a story of a rabbi who, when asked about the significance of women in Judaism, replied that women in Judaism are like an orange on a seder plate (i.e., irrelevant and unnecessary). After that, she and many others started adding oranges to their seder plates to highlight their belief that women were essential in the Jewish faith.
Are there any of our rituals we ought to add an orange to? It’s certainly (excuse the pun) food for thought.
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WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Praise God! Sing to God a new song!
All: Sing God’s praise in the assembly of the faithful.
One: Let God’s children rejoice in their Sovereign.
All: For God takes pleasure in the people;.
One: Let the high praises of God be in our throats.
All: This is glory for all the faithful ones. Praise God!
OR
One: Teach us, O God, the way of your statutes.
All: Then we will observe it to the end.
One: Give us understanding, that we may keep your law.
All: Help us to observe it with our whole heart.
One: Lead us in the path of your commandments, for we delight in it.
All: Turn our hearts to your decrees, and not to selfish gain.
OR
One: God calls us to worship and invokes our presence today.
All: In humility we come and present ourselves to our God.
One: Let us open our hearts that our worship might open us to God.
All: We open ourselves to the gracious presence among us.
One: God also comes to us in the faces of the other.
All: We will look for God in the stranger and the enemy.
Hymns and Songs
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
UMH: 110
H82: 687/688
PH: 260
GTG: 275
AAHH: 124
NNBH: 37
NCH: 439/440
CH: 65
LBW: 228/229
ELW: 503/504/505
W&P: 588
AMEC: 54
STLT: 200
The God of Abraham Praise
UMH: 116
H82: 401
GTG: 49
NCH: 24
CH: 24
LBW: 544
ELW: 831
W&P: 16
Renew: 51
When in Our Music God Is Glorified
UMH: 68
H82: 420
PH: 264
GTG: 641
AAHH: 112
NCH: 561
CH: 7
LBW: 555
ELW: 850/851
W&P: 7
STLT: 36
Renew: 62
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
UMH: 139
H82: 390
GTG: 35
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELW: 858/859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
Lord, I Want to Be a Christian
UMH: 402
PH: 372
GTG: 729
AAHH: 463
NNBH: 156
NCH: 454
CH: 589
W&P: 457
AMEC: 282
Renew: 145
The Church’s One Foundation
UMH: 545/546
H82: 525
PH: 442
GTG: 321
AAHH: 337
NNBH: 297
NCH: 286
CH: 272
LBW: 369
ELW: 654
W&P: 544
AMEC: 519
Where Charity and Love Prevail
UMH: 549
H82: 581
GTG: 316
NCH: 396
LBW: 126
ELW: 359
Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation
UMH: 559
H82: 518
PH: 416/417
GTG: 394
NCH: 400
CH: 275
LBW: 367
ELW: 645:
AMEC: 518
Blest Be the Tie That Binds
UMH: 557
PH: 438
GTG: 306
AAHH: 341
NNBH: 298
NCH: 393
CH: 433
LBW: 370
ELW: 656
W&P: 393
AMEC: 522
Here, O Lord, Your Servants Gather
UMH: 552
PH: 465
GTG: 311
CH: 278
ELW: 530
W&P: 597
Walk with Me
CCB: 88
I Am Loved
CCB: 80
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is one in three and three in one:
Grant us the insight to see that there is unity
in the midst of our diversity;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the Blessed Trinity. In your very essence your reflect how diversity and unity coexist in perfect harmony. Help us to reflect you image in all our dealings with your diverse creation. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially how we cling to empty rituals rather than embracing the unity you created for us.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You created us to dwell in communion with you and with one another and yet we live separated from you and in conflict with so many. We no longer walk in the cool of the evening with you not because you have banned us from your presence but because we have abandoned you. We do not seek your face and so we are unable to face your image in others who do not act, look, and speak like us. Forgive us our foolish ways and renew your image within us that we might live as Christ called us to live. Amen.
One: God still desires to walk with us and to dwell within us. God has not abandoned us and welcomes our presence. Receive that grace and make it shine through your encounters with others.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory belong to you, O God of all creation. Your Spirit is manifest in all your works and all your creatures. We are in awe of your splendor and grace.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You created us to dwell in communion with you and with one another and yet we live separated from you and in conflict with so many. We no longer walk in the cool of the evening with you not because you have banned us from your presence but because we have abandoned you. We do not seek your face and so we are unable to face your image in others who do not act, look, and speak like us. Forgive us our foolish ways and renew your image within us that we might live as Christ called us to live.
We give you thanks for the diversity of your creation and for the different ways you make yourself known to us. We thank you for the rites and rituals that reflect your presence among us. We thank you for those in whom we see your image reflected clearly and for those where that image in not clear to us. We thank you that you are present in all.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need and for all your children everywhere. We are bowed down with the weight of the tragedy that is apparent each day in our world. Our hearts cry out for those who suffer from storm and wildfires that destroy their communities and take the lives of loved ones. Our hearts are broken even more by the violence that we bring upon ourselves in societies based on competition and greed; violence and hatred. Even as we pray for these victims we pray for ourselves to be stronger in standing against the evils around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Listening
by Katy Stenta
Matthew 18:15-20
What do you do when you think someone is in the wrong and they won’t listen to you?
It’s really hard to get human beings to listen to one another. Let’s get two people who disagree with one another.
Let’s set up two people who are having trouble listening to one another — we can signify them by covering their ears (set up two people trying to talk to each other with covered ears)
It’s hard for them to hear one another this way, Jesus says. Maybe if they have a friend it will help — let’s give them a friend…
But if that doesn’t work, let’s give them more friends.
(Add more friends.)
And if that doesn’t work, then treat the person who is not listening as a tax collector or a Gentile — that is someone who believes differently than you.
Do you know how Jesus treated people who were tax collectors and believed differently? He invited them over to dinner and embraced them. You know what’s funny about eating together and embracing? It’s hard to cover your ears when you are doing those things together isn’t it? Let’s pretend we are eating together and see? (If these are people who would be comfortable hugging you can have them hug too, but do not push.) Or if you were to hug that would be hard as well.
Jesus says that when we gather in community, and listen together, Jesus is there, because Jesus is good at listening. It is good to remember this when we struggle or have trouble listening to one another. Let’s pray.
(You can have the children repeat if that seems appropriate.)
Dear God,
Thank you
for teaching us
how to listen
to one another
and reminding us
that
we do not
have to be
perfect
but have tools
to listen
to each other
again.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 10, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Empathy and Encouragement by Tom Willadsen based on Exodus 12:1-14.
- Second Thoughts: Refusing to Listen by Chris Keating. In a season of public discord, Christ calls us to deeper bonds of communion and trust.
- Sermon illustrations by Dean Feldmeyer, Mary Austin, Elena Delhagen.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children’s Sermon: Listening by Katy Stenta based on Matthew 18:15-20.
Empathy and Encouragementby Thomas Willadsen
Exodus 12:1-14
Why is this night different from all other nights? So begins the four questions that are asked by contemporary Jews each year as they gather to celebrate the Passover seder. Tradition has it that the youngest capable person at the table asks the four questions. Each question pertains to a particular practice connected with observing Passover: Eating only matzoh; eating maror rather than a variety of vegetables; dipping vegetables twice in salted water; and eating while reclining. Each question ties modern Jews to the liberation won for them by the Lord at the first Passover, as recorded in Exodus 12. This ritual reinforces Jewish identity and seeks to make the Passover a personal experience rather than a mere recitation of history.
What rituals do we practice today in the United States? Do they connect us personally and with experience to other people and events or are they mere lip service? What makes a ritual effective?
In the Scriptures
Today’s lesson from Exodus is the set of instructions the Lord gave to Moses and Aaron regarding the celebration of the Passover. While Passover falls in the spring — it will be in April the next four years — it falls on September 10 this year in the Revised Common Lectionary. The contemporary observance of Passover is different from what Exodus describes. Modern Jews do not eat the feast hurriedly with “loins girded.” Nor is lamb the meat of choice, having given way to brisket in the past two millennia. Still, there is a strong emphasis on experience. All five senses are used around the traditional seder table as the story of the Lord’s decisive liberation is retold. The ritual is designed to span thousands of years and miles, making God’s intended shalom and liberation personal and intimate.
“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14, NRSV)
This ritual has shaped and defined Jews in many lands and for all time. The ritual connects.
It is no coincidence that Christians erected one of our sacraments on the foundation of Passover. “On the night when Christ was betrayed,” our familiar words go, Jesus was celebrating and remembering God’s decisive liberation of his people. Modern Christians have transformed this ritual to remind us who we are, and whose we are.
When we get it right, we go well beyond “thoughts and prayers” to a renewed identity, a renewed sense of vocation.
In the News
Thoughts and prayers.
I have frankly lost track of all the mass shootings in the news. Last week there was a headline about a sentencing for a shooter in Tennessee and I could not recall which shooting that was. When had there been a shooting in Tennessee? What were the circumstances surrounding that one? It had blended into the miasma of daily mass shootings in my memory. Maybe this was the one where the angry, embittered white man was able to get access to a high-powered weapon, (or many high-powered weapons) before opening fire into a crowd? That one?
Wait, that’s like saying my favorite Three Stooges short is the one in which Moe whacks Curly. (Spoiler alert: Moe whacks Curly in every Three Stooges short. Repeatedly.)
And our ritual response to each shooting is to offer thoughts and prayers to the survivors and the communities that have experienced this all too frequent occurrence. Thoughts and prayers. Good Liars offered a brilliant critique of our impotent ritual in this clip from last year’s National Rifle Association convention in Houston.
Passing meaningful laws that restrict access to weapons, funding community mental health initiatives, working to integrate estranged people into the community — things that would actually respond to the epidemic of mass shootings in this country — are not part of our communal, ritual response. We offer thoughts and prayers and continue to be surprised, daily, by acts of gun violence and mayhem.
Which part of the world is experiencing a natural disaster linked to global warming this week? British Columbia? Maui? The Florida Panhandle? India? Arizona? Los Angeles? The debris following wildfire, hurricanes and deadly heat waves looks different, but our response is the same — we offer thoughts and prayers for the survivors, first responders, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At my church we promote Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) and encourage members to donate in response. Do we drive less? Switch to a plant-based diet? Take steps to use renewable energy? Do we do anything to put less carbon in the atmosphere, and thus have an impact on climate change? Not so much. We offer thoughts and prayers, and maybe write a check.
In the Sermon
Been there. Will go there with you.
Paradise, California, endured the worst wildfire in California history in November 2018. A town that had been home to around 27,000 people now has a population one third that size. Still, those who survived the fire know exactly what the residents of Lahaina, Hawaii, are going through.
“This whole town of Paradise knows exactly what they’re feeling,” Tamara Fisher, a survivor of the Camp Fire, said. “It was fast. It was brutal. They just had to go with their gut. And some didn’t make it.”
“There’s so many points that were identical to what happened here in Paradise,” Richard Gore said. “But we do know that they will rise again because Paradise has. They’ll get through it.”
Civic groups from Paradise, including the Rotary Club, have already reached out to Maui with offers to help. Town Councilman Steve “Woody” Culleton wrote an email to Maui’s mayor and sent it Thursday morning.
Culleton choked up when he read it aloud.
“As a resident of Paradise CA and a survivor of the 2018 Camp Fire storm I and our community know what you folks are going through,” he wrote.
There really is something different, more profound, more impactful when someone who has really endured a catastrophe or survived peril, can offer empathy and encouragement to someone in similar straits. At our best, we feel and empathize while we think and pray.
SECOND THOUGHTSRefusing to Listen
by Chris Keating
Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 13:8-14
Does anyone else have a hard time keeping up with seasons?
Officially, fall doesn’t begin until September 23. But try telling that to the autumn aficionados who got a jumpstart on the season August 23rd, when Starbucks began brewing all-things pumpkin spice. Lowe’s is piling its aisles full of gigantic Halloween decorations, even though half of the country is facing record-breaking heat waves. Football is back, kids are in school, and baseball is prepping for the postseason.
But it does not feel like fall. In fact, if truth be told, this is a time of seasonal confusion. Forget pumpkin spice. What we are living through is a prolonged season of public discord. Divisions across cultural, political, religious, and economic lines are as deep as the Mariana trench.
Political divisions have not healed since the last election cycle. With President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump the likely 2024 nominees, it seems as though the 2024 election will be a season of reruns. Political scientists note that the headwinds driving the election campaign are rooted in strong “negative partisanship,” and not a desire to solve national problems. Hatred may be a strong word, but it seems to be an even stronger motivator.
“Who do you hate? Hey, who hates you? Those are the motivating forces right now,” said David Kochel, a longtime Trump-skeptical Republican strategist from Iowa. “It would be better for the country if we had an argument about the future. And it’s hard to do that if you have two really old politicians who already ran against each other.”
Ideologies of hate seem to be rising as quickly as temperatures in August. President Biden reminded an audience last week that intelligence agencies are monitoring potential domestic terrorist threats rooted in racial hatred. White supremacy, Biden said, “is the greatest threat we face in the homeland.”
There are also non-racial acts of violence, including numerous threats or acts in high schools across the country last week that prompted administrators to postpone Friday night football games. In St. Louis, Missouri, games were cancelled at three high schools following fights or other violent outbursts, including one shooting.
The venting of internal anxieties, channeling feelings of negative partisanship are also experienced on Sunday mornings. The ongoing rift within Methodism over the role of LGBTQ persons has resulted in the loss of more than 6,000 congregations from the United Methodist Church. “I don’t think any of us want to see any of our churches leave,” said Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops. “There’s never been a time when the church has not been without conflict, but there’s been a way we’ve worked through that.”
The bishop is correct. Jesus’ words in Matthew, perhaps a reflection of the earliest Christian community’s own struggles with conflict, invite disciples to consider pathways of peace. Coupled with Paul’s admonition to “owe no one anything, except to love one another,” these texts exhort Christians to create communities of loving trust and mutual accountability. Such community, notes Warren Carter, is commanded to enact Jesus’ own prayer “if this is how it is in heaven,” Carter writes, “so it must be among disciples on earth.” (Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, vol. 204, Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 365).
While we have no record of Jesus sitting through a hotly-contested congregational meeting or a temper-enraging judicial debate, it seems he did know something about the proclivity of humans to act poorly in community. His alternative, shaped by the progression to the cross, is a way of faith no less demanding. The cross-shaped community is marked by reconciliation, forgiveness, and inclusion. It is shaped by child-like humility (18:4), and a wide-eyed awareness of pitfalls and occasions for stumbling (18:7).
In other words, conflict is going to happen. It might even be healthy. But it is going to require opening ourselves in humility and trust. That is especially true when the conflicts go beyond what sort of coffee should be served and whether the donuts should be plain or sprinkled. (Perhaps it is a nod toward baptismal practices, but Presbyterians do seem to love their sprinkled donuts.)
My first lessons in church conflict happened back in the 1970s, long before I ever considered attending seminary. I was in middle school, sitting between my parents on a hot summer Sunday. We had rounded the corner of worship, and were headed toward the final hymn. All that separated me from my cup of tepid church Kool-Aid was the final song.
In a nod to church members who wanted more contemporary-sounding music, the pastor had chosen a song not found in our regular hymnal. Instead, we were directed to sing Kurt Kaiser’s 1969 song, “Pass It On.” Having sung that at countless campfires, I was intrigued by how my parents might react. I gathered it would not have been among my mother’s favorites, but both mom and dad sang along without objection.
However, a barefooted young man stood up on a pew behind us and shouted, “Praise God” as we were singing, “I’ll shout it from the mountain tops…” Some, especially those who saw themselves as harbingers of a neo-Pentecostal expression of faith, were elated. Others, including my staunch Presbyterian parents, were mortified. (I’d like to think it was the bare feet that really pushed them over the edge, especially since I had always liked “Pass It On.”)
The fault-lines of conflict were immediately apparent. Two groups formed on the patio during coffee time that morning: A pro “praise song” group, and traditionalists who preferred hymns (and the wearing of shoes). Eventually, those fault lines gave way to deeper fissures of theology and debates over congregational culture. The resulting conflict prompted hurt feelings, departures of prominent members, and years of distrust.
Interestingly, many of those who loved quoting scripture never mentioned Jesus’ words about listening to those with whom you disagree. (To their credit, I did see my parents and their friends reach out to others who did not share their viewpoints.) Jesus points us away from hyper partisanship. The way of the cross resists hatred and overcomes evil. It does no wrong to neighbors. It shuns evils like angry partisanship behavior and white supremacy.
It dares to trust that where two or more are gathered, no matter what sort of donuts are served, Christ will be in our midst.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:Exodus 12:1-14
The Birth of the Passover Seder Ritual. The importance of rituals.
Weird Rituals Around the World
Do an internet search of the phrase “weird rituals” and here are some that you will find. Keep in mind that they’re weird only from the outside. To the people who practice them they are important activities that remind them of who they are:
- Baby Tossing: In Maharashtra, India, it is customary to throw newborn babies off the side of a 15-meter-tall (roughly 50 feet) temple. This ritual is believed to give the children good luck, courage, and intelligence. No word on how their landing is cushioned.
- Blackening the Bride: In Scotland, the bride-to-be is covered with eggs, flour, molasses, and other sticky substances before her wedding day. The tradition is called “blackening the bride” and is meant to ward off evil spirits.
- Living with the Dead: In Indonesia, some ethnic groups practice a ritual called “Ma’nene” or “The Ceremony of Cleaning Corpses.” During this ritual, families exhume the bodies of their deceased relatives, clean them up, and dress them in new clothes.
- Fire Walking: In Greece and India, people walk barefoot over hot coals as part of a religious ceremony. This ritual is believed to purify the soul and bring good luck. And, yes, some serious burns have been noted.
- Cleansing with Urine: In India, some people believe that drinking cow urine can cure diseases and purify the body. They also use it for bathing and washing their clothes.
- Finger Cutting: In Papua New Guinea, young boys undergo a painful initiation ceremony called “crocodile scarification.” During this ritual, parts of their fingers are cut off as a symbol of their transition into manhood.
- Bull Leaping: In ancient Crete, young men would leap over bulls as part of a coming-of-age ceremony. This ritual was believed to demonstrate their bravery and agility.
* * *
Weird American Rituals
Lest we become too smug in observing and smirking over the weird rituals of other countries, take a look at these American rituals that must certainly seem equally bizarre to visitors from other countries.
1. Presidential turkey pardons — Since the 1940s, US presidents have been presented with a Thanksgiving turkey at a special ceremony and have spared the bird’s life by officially pardoning it.
2. Nenana Ice Classic, Alaska — Ice on the Tanana River in Alaska accumulates to more than a meter deep during the winter. Back in 1906, six people in the city of Nenana bet on the exact time on the exact day that the ice would break in the spring. The prize was $816 to the winner. In 2014 the prize hit a record $363,000.
3. Groundhog Day, Pennsylvania — On February 2 every year, groundhog burrows across America are put under intense scrutiny for their powers to foretell seasonal change. Really? Groundhogs?
4. Ostrich racing, Arizona — Ostriches were first brought to the US in the 1880s, and ostrich-riding races sprung up in several states across the country. The biggest current race is in Arizona, at the Chandler Ostrich Festival, which celebrated its 31st year in 2019.
6. Roadkill cook-off, West Virginia — Every September, people in Marlington, West Virginia, have a Roadkill Cook-off, where you can try such delights as biscuits covered in squirrel gravy, teriyaki-marinated bear, or deer sausage, all scooped up from the side of the road after an unfortunate accident.
7. Pumpkin chucking — Throwing pumpkins is now a ritual practice throughout the US but the original and largest pumpkin chucking contest, Punkin Chunkin, is held annually in the state of Delaware. Contestants use trebuchets, catapults, torsions and air cannons to make those pumpkins fly. The furthest has traveled 4694 feet (1.4km).
8. The imperial system — Even though the metric system was formally sanctioned by Congress way back in 1866, the US remains the only industrialized country in the world not to have adopted it as the official system of measurement. We still insist on using feet, yards, miles, pounds, ounces, quarts and gallons.
* * *
Habits, Routines, Traditions, Or Rituals?
Sometimes in the church we participate in rituals that aren’t really rituals. We think this or that activity is infused with meaning but, really, it’s just a habit, a tradition, or a routine, devoid of meaning. How do we know the difference?
Habits are things we do because we can’t not do them. Smoking is a habit. Fingernail biting is a habit. They may be harmless or hurtful but we just can’t bring ourselves to not do them without help from a therapist or counselor or a person whom we trust has our best interests at heart.
Traditions are routines or things we do because we’ve “always” done them. Sometimes they have their roots in social etiquette established to make life easier for the group. Like passing food to the left at the dinner table or shaking hands with a stranger to make sure their hand isn’t concealing a weapon. Others may have been important rituals at one time but have lost their meaning through over or inappropriate use. This would include telling people that we’re keeping them in our “thoughts and prayers” after we all know that is most often simply code for “doing nothing.”
Rituals reach back to our core beliefs and moral standards. The eucharist is a ritual because it reminds us of who we are. The wedding ceremony is a ritual that reminds us — all of us, not just the people getting married — that commitment agreed to before the community of faith is part of who we are. The sacraments — Protestant and Roman Catholic — are rituals that remind us who we are.
It is absolutely vital that, in the church, we don’t mistake one of these for the other. No matter how much we may love our potluck dinners and our church softball teams, until they strike at the very heart and essence of who we are, they’re just routines or habits.
* * *
How Important Rituals Lose Their Meaning and Power
Important rituals can lose their meaning and power and turn into nothing more than habits or routines. Usually this doesn’t happen all at once but incrementally and over a long period of time. For example:
Up until the early 1600s the Pope sat in a “pierced” chair that had a large, uncomfortable keyhole shape in the back and seat. This was to remind the Pope to be humble, or so it was explained. Eventually, however, it became little more than a nuisance and was abandoned.
In ancient times, people would decorate trees with fruits and nuts to celebrate the winter solstice. Christians borrowed the practice, using a fir (evergreen) tree to celebrate the birth and immortality of Jesus Christ. However, with time, this ritual has lost most of its original meaning and has become more of a commercialized tradition.
Wedding ceremonies in the Christian churches used to be filled with meaning about commitment, self-sacrifice, selfless love, as well as erotic passion and fertility. Today, most of that has been lost. Weddings are more about stag parties (male and female), the bride’s chance to become a “princess for a day,” how pretty everything looks, and how raucous the reception can be and if there’s an open bar.
Similarly, funeral rituals have also lost much of their meaning over time. In ancient times, funerals were seen as a way to honor the dead and help them transition to the afterlife. In modern times, however, funerals have become more of a social obligation to be gotten through as quickly as possible than a meaningful ritual.
* * *
Matthew 18:15-20
Tax collectors and sinners and how we treat them. Even God practices teamwork.
Stack Overflow in The Church
“Stack overflow” is a term usually applied to computer programming and, in simple terms, it means that the first thing to come out of a system will be the last thing that was put into the system. Think of a stack of blocks that you have created and now want to disassemble. The first block you remove from the stack will be the last one you placed on the top. (Yes, yes, I know. This doesn’t apply to Jinga, but you get the picture.)
Stack overflow is also a phenomenon that happens in social systems (groups). As the group coalesces, the last or most recent people to join the group will often be the first to leave it. This is often simply because it is hard to break into an established system or group and, once they do, they don’t have as much invested in it. Rituals, traditions, jargon and mythologies have been created and are difficult to learn and some people will find the process too arduous to bother with.
Churches, themselves, can experience stack overflow as a whole. Imagine the first-time visitor or guest, coming into the worship service and trying to discern what is acceptable dress, behavior, volume of singing voice, sitting and/or standing, even where they are allowed to sit.
Also, the stack overflow occurs when the group has not learned the language, rituals, and expectations of the new arrival. They will be much more likely to offend and cross boundaries with new people than with old friends.
* * *
Even God Practices Teamwork
In Genesis 18, Abraham is visited by three men with whom he shares a meal. As part of their time together, the spokesman of the three announces that, within a year, Sarah will have a child even though she is old and well past “the way of women.” Then the three leave to visit the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where it’s as bad as they have heard, and they intend to utterly destroy both towns. After some haggling with Abraham, they make their way to the twin cities where they meet up with Lot and his family and, eventually, do as they had planned, i.e., reign down fire and brimstone, destroying both towns and all that was in them.
Scholars have argued for centuries who those three men are. Tradition holds that they were angels or angelic beings. Some traditions even go so far as to guess at their names, usually the well-known “celebrity” angels — Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. There is nothing in scripture to support such speculation, however.
A newer interpretation holds that the three men were actually the Lord YHWH, appearing as three people. Remember, only one of the men actually speaks. A fine example of how even God sometimes believes in and practices teamwork.
* * *
Geese and Teamwork
There is a lot of mythology about geese and why they fly in a V configuration and what it all means, much of which has been debunked by ornithologists, physicists, and other people who study such things.
Over the years, I’ve heard lots of speakers and preachers use this mythology in their speeches and sermons only to be disproved some time later. One thing about geese that has never been disproved, however, is this, which I once heard a speaker end his presentations with this:
Oh, and one other thing: If you watch carefully, you’ll notice that all geese wedges have one side longer than the other. Do you know why that is? (Pause.) It’s becaue there are more geese on that side.
It took a couple of seconds but he left the stage to uproarious laughter and applause.
* * *
One Hand Clapping, Together
The story is told about the famous comedian Jimmy Durante, where after a show he was asked if he could come down the street and briefly speak to some WWII soldiers who were recovering from their wounds at a local rehab center. Knowing that this would make him late for his next engagement, he reluctantly agreed that he could give the group only ten minutes.
He followed the gentleman down the street and found about 100 wounded vets in beds, wheelchairs, and folding chairs, arrayed, theater style, in the activities room. He stood at a microphone in front of the room and did the ten-minute bit which was met with much laughter and applause. So, looking at his watch, he continued for another five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, finally, he had been speaking for 30 minutes and he bid them all farewell, thanking them for their service and sacrifice.
On the way to the airport his driver asked why kept talking after the ten minutes were over and he said that, in the front row, there were two amputees who had both lost arms, one the left and one the right. Neither of them could join the applause alone but when they particularly enjoyed one of his jokes, they would work together with the hands they had to make something like applause.
If it was worth working that hard for them to say thank you, Durante said, then it was worth me working a little harder for them to have something to applaud for.
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:Romans 13:8-14
Get Vertical
“Now is the time to wake from sleep,” Paul urges the faithful in Rome. He means a spiritual alertness to the presence of God. Author Elizabeth Gilbert adds to that the wisdom of standing up, in body and mind. She observes, “I have a rule, a very strict rule in my life against horizontal thinking, which means if I’m in bed — because I wake up, my mind turns on, and the anxiety begins. And I call that horizontal thinking. My mind has me trapped in bed, lying down, and so it can do whatever it wants. It can have its way with me.”
If she stands up and starts moving, the anxiety subsides, and she can face the day. “I battle against horizontal thinking by actually standing up, and now I can do vertical thinking. And vertical thinking is already better than horizontal thinking.” Changing “your posture from down to up,” as she says, or from sleep to awake, as Paul says, makes all the difference.
* * *
Romans 13:8-14
What We Owe
“Owe no one anything,” Paul advises, except love. Many Americans would be thrilled to have that emotional freedom.
Instead, the average household the US spends 9.6% of their income on debt repayment. As spending increased after the pandemic, debt has increased, although “despite debt increasing overall, Americans are still spending less of their income on debt than most of the 2000s.” As a country, we and our neighbors “owe $1 trillion in credit card debt as of the second quarter of 2023. That's a record high, up from $986 billion in the first quarter of 2023.”
Most of what we owe is on our homes, an amount that is rising as home prices increase. “Mortgage debt makes up 70% of American consumer debt. That number has risen consistently since mid-2013…The average mortgage debt among Americans is $236,443.”
Our experiences vary here. “While more than a third of Americans say they’re carrying their highest level of debt ever, an even greater share reported the opposite. The latest New York Federal Reserve data also shows that rising credit card debt and auto loans helped push US household debt to new records in the second quarter of 2023.”
The advice to “owe no one anything” is a far-off dream for many people in the US.
* * *
Romans 13:8-14
Wake Up!
The apostle Paul would be impressed! He urges the believers in Rome to be awake. On a physical, and very practical level, Thomas Frank, an entrepreneur in Boulder, Colorado, is very serious about waking up on time. He gets up at 5:55 each morning. “And if he doesn’t, he has a tweet automatically scheduled that says, “It’s 6:10 and I’m not up because I’m lazy! Reply to this for $5 via PayPal (limit 5), assuming my alarm didn’t malfunction.” (story from Atomic Habits by James Clear)
* * *
Matthew 18:15-20
Listening to Each Other
In Jesus’ instructions about how to handle disputes, the word “listen” comes up again and again. The story is told about another wise rabbi who understood this.
“Two villagers came to a rabbi with a dispute. When the rabbi invited them to sit down and talk about it, they glowered at each other as though to say, “If you sit down at this table, then I won’t!” At last, they sat at the rabbi’s table with arms folded, casting angry glances at each other.”
Then the rabbi said, “Do you have anything more to say, Shlomo?” Yes, Shlomo asserted, he had more to say. The rabbi kept listening to Shlomo’s answers and asking him questions about them until at last Shlomo said, more calmly, “No. I have nothing more to say.” Next, the rabbi turned toward the other villager, Moshe, and asked, “What happened?” The rabbi listened to him and asked him questions until he, too, said, “I have nothing more to say.”
The rabbi rose from the table to leave the room, saying, “I will deliberate on this and come back with a decision.”
Less than a minute later, the rabbi returned, sat back down at the table, and said, “I have reached my verdict.” The rabbi described the verdict to them. Shlomo and Moshe looked at each other and each said, “All right. That solves it.” They shook hands and left.
Another man had been in the room and had watched all this. He said to the rabbi, “You found the solution in just a minute. Why did you let them talk so long, when you knew the answer right away?”
The rabbi said, “If I had not listened to each one’s full story, each would have resented my decision. It wasn’t my judgment that solved the problem. What solved it was listening to their entire stories.”
The listening is the secret, as Jesus knows.
* * *
Matthew 18:15-20
Listening to the Enemy
Jesus invites his followers — and us — into a space of grace for our enemies, which is hard for minor transgressions, and even harder for huge losses. Michael T. McRay says, “We can give shelter to each other by telling stories of what it means to be human, and by listening generously.” He tells the story of a Palestinian man he met through a storytelling project.
He shares, “Bassam is a middle-aged Palestinian man who, at age seventeen, was sentenced to seven years in Israeli prison after a group of his friends threw grenades at Israeli soldiers. (No one was injured.) While in prison, one of Bassam’s Israeli jailers began conversations with him, challenging him on the story Bassam believed about his history, politics, and people. As the jailer and Bassam each told his understanding of the conflicted story of Israelis and Palestinians, Bassam hoped to convince the man to his way of thinking; I suspect the jailer hoped for the opposite. After a while, the jailer started bringing Bassam coffee — an attempt to provide some dignity and a sign of growing respect, or at least less disdain.
One October day, around a hundred Israeli soldiers entered the prison as part of a military exercise, bringing each Palestinian out of his cell to be beaten in a gauntlet formation. When they seized Bassam, he resisted and was taken into a side room for a more severe beating. As the soldiers struck him over and over, another person entered and threw his body over Bassam’s to protect him. It was his jailer.
Some years later, after Bassam was free, he began meeting with former soldiers to exchange stories and hear different points of view, meetings that eventually led to the creation of Combatants for Peace. “I started to learn the other side,” he told me. “Then I began to see the soldiers in the checkpoints not as targets. For the first time, I started to look at their faces.… The change starts in yourself. Rumi said, ‘Yesterday I was clever, so I started to change the world. Today I am wise, so I start to change myself.’”
In 2007, an Israeli soldier shot and killed Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter, Abir, as she came home from school. Bassam’s response to his daughter’s killing was remarkable: He went to graduate school to study the Holocaust, hoping to better understand the history of his Jewish neighbors. Today Bassam is a spokesperson for Parents Circle–Families Forum, an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost family members in the conflict.”
Listening to our enemies can take us to surprising places.
* * * * * *
From team member Elena Delhagan:Romans 13:8-14, Psalm 119:33-40
“Where two or three are gathered in my name” is not, as some would believe, words confirming Jesus’ presence at our small gatherings. Is Jesus present when two or three believers are gathered together? Absolutely! He’s also present with a solo Christian as well.
Rather, what Jesus is actually talking about in this passage is how to handle conflict. A faithful Jew, Jesus is calling upon words from the Torah (Deut. 19:15-19 specifically, which says that two or three witnesses must agree with one another in order for legally binding charges to be brought against someone.) What Jesus is doing here shows us how to handle conflict with a fellow believer using the Law as our basis.
The Law is not unimportant to Jesus; nor should it be to us as modern Christians. The passage of the Torah Jesus is referencing is to protect individuals from fabricated charges against them. Likewise, God’s laws for us are impossibly rigid regulations imposed on us by a militant taskmaster. God desires goodness, protection, and flourishing for us, which comes, as the psalmist understood, through following God’s ways (Psalm 119:33-40, the Psalm reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for this week).
* * *
Romans 13:8-14
Many view the book of Romans to be all about grace (which is undoubtedly a strong theme). The problem we run into, however, is the assumption that pro-grace means, unequivocally, anti-Law — especially because in this week’s lectionary passage from Romans, Paul writes of how our love for one another is actually the fulfillment of the Law.
We are expected to obey laws all the time in this country. At the beginning of 2023, ABC news published an article about some of the big laws that would be going to effect this year in the United States. Some of them are causes for celebration: a raise in minimum wage in many states, pay transparency, and criminal justice reform. In instances like these, where policy is enacted to be more fair, just, and equitable, they act as examples of how love fulfills the law (and vice versa).
But what about laws that aren’t fair, just, or even kind? The website of the American Civil Liberties Union outlines some of the more troubling legislation that is being introduced across America, everything from voter suppression in Georgia to nationwide bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community, we are inching closer and closer as a society to being forced to answer the question: What do we do when the laws we are told to obey are inherently harmful?
* * *
Exodus 12:1-14
The Jewish festival of Passover dates all the way back to approximately the 5th century B.C.E. Because its history spans multiple millenia, the rituals and traditions have evolved over time, and many modern Passover traditions scarcely resemble Passovers of old.
The text from Exodus brings up these questions of rituals and traditions, and what we, collectively, should do when we find that a ritual is no longer useful or relevant. Additionally, there are times in history, such as when the Covid-19 pandemic first hit American soil, that we find ourselves longing for rituals, but since there are none that apply to our current experience, we are forced to make them up as we go.
Is a ritual still a ritual if we change it? Is it still meaningful if we add or subtract to it?
Female Jewish writer Susie Kisber writes that some modern Jews have taken to putting an orange on their seder plates (despite oranges not being a traditional Passover food) because of a midrash frequently told by Suzanna Heschel. Suzanna was speaking at an event in the 1980s when she heard of a story of a rabbi who, when asked about the significance of women in Judaism, replied that women in Judaism are like an orange on a seder plate (i.e., irrelevant and unnecessary). After that, she and many others started adding oranges to their seder plates to highlight their belief that women were essential in the Jewish faith.
Are there any of our rituals we ought to add an orange to? It’s certainly (excuse the pun) food for thought.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: Praise God! Sing to God a new song!
All: Sing God’s praise in the assembly of the faithful.
One: Let God’s children rejoice in their Sovereign.
All: For God takes pleasure in the people;.
One: Let the high praises of God be in our throats.
All: This is glory for all the faithful ones. Praise God!
OR
One: Teach us, O God, the way of your statutes.
All: Then we will observe it to the end.
One: Give us understanding, that we may keep your law.
All: Help us to observe it with our whole heart.
One: Lead us in the path of your commandments, for we delight in it.
All: Turn our hearts to your decrees, and not to selfish gain.
OR
One: God calls us to worship and invokes our presence today.
All: In humility we come and present ourselves to our God.
One: Let us open our hearts that our worship might open us to God.
All: We open ourselves to the gracious presence among us.
One: God also comes to us in the faces of the other.
All: We will look for God in the stranger and the enemy.
Hymns and Songs
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
UMH: 110
H82: 687/688
PH: 260
GTG: 275
AAHH: 124
NNBH: 37
NCH: 439/440
CH: 65
LBW: 228/229
ELW: 503/504/505
W&P: 588
AMEC: 54
STLT: 200
The God of Abraham Praise
UMH: 116
H82: 401
GTG: 49
NCH: 24
CH: 24
LBW: 544
ELW: 831
W&P: 16
Renew: 51
When in Our Music God Is Glorified
UMH: 68
H82: 420
PH: 264
GTG: 641
AAHH: 112
NCH: 561
CH: 7
LBW: 555
ELW: 850/851
W&P: 7
STLT: 36
Renew: 62
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
UMH: 139
H82: 390
GTG: 35
AAHH: 117
NNBH: 2
NCH: 22
CH: 25
ELW: 858/859
AMEC: 3
STLT: 278
Renew: 57
Lord, I Want to Be a Christian
UMH: 402
PH: 372
GTG: 729
AAHH: 463
NNBH: 156
NCH: 454
CH: 589
W&P: 457
AMEC: 282
Renew: 145
The Church’s One Foundation
UMH: 545/546
H82: 525
PH: 442
GTG: 321
AAHH: 337
NNBH: 297
NCH: 286
CH: 272
LBW: 369
ELW: 654
W&P: 544
AMEC: 519
Where Charity and Love Prevail
UMH: 549
H82: 581
GTG: 316
NCH: 396
LBW: 126
ELW: 359
Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation
UMH: 559
H82: 518
PH: 416/417
GTG: 394
NCH: 400
CH: 275
LBW: 367
ELW: 645:
AMEC: 518
Blest Be the Tie That Binds
UMH: 557
PH: 438
GTG: 306
AAHH: 341
NNBH: 298
NCH: 393
CH: 433
LBW: 370
ELW: 656
W&P: 393
AMEC: 522
Here, O Lord, Your Servants Gather
UMH: 552
PH: 465
GTG: 311
CH: 278
ELW: 530
W&P: 597
Walk with Me
CCB: 88
I Am Loved
CCB: 80
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is one in three and three in one:
Grant us the insight to see that there is unity
in the midst of our diversity;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the Blessed Trinity. In your very essence your reflect how diversity and unity coexist in perfect harmony. Help us to reflect you image in all our dealings with your diverse creation. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially how we cling to empty rituals rather than embracing the unity you created for us.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You created us to dwell in communion with you and with one another and yet we live separated from you and in conflict with so many. We no longer walk in the cool of the evening with you not because you have banned us from your presence but because we have abandoned you. We do not seek your face and so we are unable to face your image in others who do not act, look, and speak like us. Forgive us our foolish ways and renew your image within us that we might live as Christ called us to live. Amen.
One: God still desires to walk with us and to dwell within us. God has not abandoned us and welcomes our presence. Receive that grace and make it shine through your encounters with others.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory belong to you, O God of all creation. Your Spirit is manifest in all your works and all your creatures. We are in awe of your splendor and grace.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You created us to dwell in communion with you and with one another and yet we live separated from you and in conflict with so many. We no longer walk in the cool of the evening with you not because you have banned us from your presence but because we have abandoned you. We do not seek your face and so we are unable to face your image in others who do not act, look, and speak like us. Forgive us our foolish ways and renew your image within us that we might live as Christ called us to live.
We give you thanks for the diversity of your creation and for the different ways you make yourself known to us. We thank you for the rites and rituals that reflect your presence among us. We thank you for those in whom we see your image reflected clearly and for those where that image in not clear to us. We thank you that you are present in all.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need and for all your children everywhere. We are bowed down with the weight of the tragedy that is apparent each day in our world. Our hearts cry out for those who suffer from storm and wildfires that destroy their communities and take the lives of loved ones. Our hearts are broken even more by the violence that we bring upon ourselves in societies based on competition and greed; violence and hatred. Even as we pray for these victims we pray for ourselves to be stronger in standing against the evils around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMONListening
by Katy Stenta
Matthew 18:15-20
What do you do when you think someone is in the wrong and they won’t listen to you?
It’s really hard to get human beings to listen to one another. Let’s get two people who disagree with one another.
Let’s set up two people who are having trouble listening to one another — we can signify them by covering their ears (set up two people trying to talk to each other with covered ears)
It’s hard for them to hear one another this way, Jesus says. Maybe if they have a friend it will help — let’s give them a friend…
But if that doesn’t work, let’s give them more friends.
(Add more friends.)
And if that doesn’t work, then treat the person who is not listening as a tax collector or a Gentile — that is someone who believes differently than you.
Do you know how Jesus treated people who were tax collectors and believed differently? He invited them over to dinner and embraced them. You know what’s funny about eating together and embracing? It’s hard to cover your ears when you are doing those things together isn’t it? Let’s pretend we are eating together and see? (If these are people who would be comfortable hugging you can have them hug too, but do not push.) Or if you were to hug that would be hard as well.
Jesus says that when we gather in community, and listen together, Jesus is there, because Jesus is good at listening. It is good to remember this when we struggle or have trouble listening to one another. Let’s pray.
(You can have the children repeat if that seems appropriate.)
Dear God,
Thank you
for teaching us
how to listen
to one another
and reminding us
that
we do not
have to be
perfect
but have tools
to listen
to each other
again.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 10, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
